Twitter @haarsager

Friday, 15 June 2007

The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are considering a joint venture that could pool their broadband video download programming. Known as ‘Project Kangaroo,’ it aims to do for broadband video what Freeview did for digital terrestrial television. ¶ The broadcasters have either launched or are preparing to launch broadband video download services, but based on their own dedicated online properties. The BBC originally led the way with its proposed peer-to-peer service, which has yet to launch. Meanwhile, Channel 4 has launched its own 4oD proposition, based on the same Kontiki platform provided by ioko. This week ITV launched a streaming service. All three use Microsoft digital rights management to provide content protection. ...

Link: informitv. NB: links above not in the original article. In the U.S., the Kontiki platform he mentions is also used by Open Media Network. --Dennis

Thursday, 14 June 2007

Congratulations to Neal Shapiro and his team at WNET Thirteen on an innovative online community engagement initiative called War Stories. Partnering with Open Media Network, the initiative permits people to submit video recollections of their wartime experiences. They can do so by either video tape or direct uploading to OMN. You can view the project at www.omn.org/partners/WNET/WarStories or through a link on the front page at thirteen.org.

Update 15 June, 2007:I've been pointed to a similar effort at KETC/9 in St. Louis -- also a nice one for which congratulations are in order. I am told by their consultant that they were doing this first. KETC is using YouTube and Facebook instead of OMN. I'd be interested from others who are doing this. Thanks to Rob Paterson for the tip and apologies to KETC president Jack Galmiche for missing this -- both friends. --Dennis

I'm blogging in front of the television tonight, watching Fred Wiseman's latest documentary -- State Legislature. I won't make it to the end because it's nearly four hours long, a typical Wiseman marathon. What's remarkable about it, though, is that he's giving an amazing portrait of Idaho's citizen legislators without turning it into a partisan contest. We in the media always seem to have to gin up a contest by labeling everyone "blues" or "reds" or some such.

It's now 95 minutes into the documentary and he's not identified a single person as a D or an R. How are we supposed to separate the good guys from the bad guys? The smart ones from the dumb ones? Who's telling it straight and who is misrepresenting the truth? Gosh, it leaves the impression that these are a bunch of hard-working people who take time away from their families and jobs to do the public's business. What a radical concept! I've spent time working with legislators in three states, including the one that Wiseman's documentary covers, and while a few bozos get elected and while they suffer disagreements and even some game-playing, Wiseman's documentary provides a more accurate picture of government at work than does a lot of what passes for journalism today. Great work. --Dennis

... After ceding ground (and potential advertising dollars) for years to an army of autonomous Internet radio stations, some of which are run from basements and spare bedrooms, the nation’s biggest broadcasters are now marching online, determined to corral the next generation of listeners. The result may be a showdown to define the future of the medium. ¶ Confronted by a slow erosion of listeners who are turning to iPods, podcasts and other sources for entertainment, the radio corporations are trying to merge their over-the-air music and D.J. chatter with the Web, adding online streams of their broadcasts and features already found on many independent Web-based stations. These include live chat rooms, blogs and MySpace-style social networking features. ...

Wednesday, 13 June 2007

... But TiVo is a wonderful device that took so long to gain traction that the
market window is going to close before it ever really opened. TiVo will simply
never be able to reach scale. ¶ BTW, I’m not gleeful about this. I don’t like to see such a
brilliant idea, executed relatively well, fail in the marketplace. ... ¶ What TiVo lacks right now is a way to grow the number of
people (by an order of magnitude or greater) that access video through their
interface. They can only monetize through advertising if they control the
environment that the video is played within. An order of magnitude would still
only net them 15-20 million users ... But TiVo
is never going to get there in a way that is relevant. They have been rapidly
outflanked by the likes of Apple and Slingbox which will soon be replaced by a
plethora of ‘soft’ open applications that run on browser-enabled devices. ¶ To be a bit more detailed, the video access device of the future is one that
connects to any screen (or is embedded in the device with the screen), has high
speed Internet access and can render a powerful web browser (Flash9+
support). This can be done pretty inexpensively, and will likely wind up built
into most modern TV sets and cell phones (or iPhones). These things are not
going to come with TV-tuners installed, not at the glacial rate things like
CableCard developed and the political wranglings of a few MSOs. I have argued
the broadcast is not going to die anytime soon, and that is still the case, but
the pace at which it is getting outflanked by IP delivery is astonishing. I
mean, look at the CBS syndication strategy to see how quickly this is all
happening. ...

... Yet, some of the buzz being dispensed to the attendees [of New Media Seminar 10] this year is that
terrestrial radio is in serious trouble if it doesn't get its act together.
There was a sense among those there that news/talk and talk radio is the
salvation of terrestrial radio primarily because music radio is dead, dead and
more dead. It's this MP3 player thing that's going around. ¶ I respect all
of those in attendance who got up on the dais and the podiums and tossed out
this theory, philosophy or prediction, but they're just plain wrong. ...

... all the research I've
seen indicates that the public love this. You've heard that "Content is King"?
For consumers "Choice is king". ...

If you know me and are old enough to hold an AARP card, you'll probably understand why Don Herbert'sWatch Mr. Wizard was my favorite television program as a kid, the original series ending after 14 years in 1965. It was probably the real source of my interest in science and technology. I hate to think of all the things I cooked up in my mother's kitchen that had nothing to do with food.

However, I learned from BoingBoing that, sadly, Mr. Wizard died this morning of cancer at his home in California. He would have turned 90 next month. The Los Angeles Times has a nice obituary. I can't raise it tonight, but his company's web site is mrwizardstudios.com.

For a time, my station had the contract to market 17 federally-funded series targeted to minority children and, in conjunction with that, I helped staff our hospitality suite at a NATPE meeting in San Francisco (circa 1980). Comic actor Stubby Kaye and Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) came by the suite, but the real highlight of the whole convention for me was having Mr. Herbert visit our suite. I talked with him for 15-20 minutes about his work and, of course, gushed as only a goofy fan could do. He was just as approachable and friendly as ... well ... as Mr. Wizard would have been. He was there trying to market a new version of the show which I learned from his obit was called Mr. Wizard's World and ran on Nickelodeon from 1983-1990.

Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Sondra Russell works for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
writes the following News Digest on a weekly basis. I think it's a
very nice piece of work, but it's distributed by email only. So she's
given me permission to quote it here so it can get RSS distribution and
also be seen by people outside of public broadcasting. Her email
address is srussell [at] cpb [dot] org. --DennisSONDRA’S
SUMMARY

>
The top story this week is that the Digital Transition (a.k.a. Analog
Shutoff) is humming along swimmingly, as evidenced by a recent story in the
New York Times that LG
and RCA are offering $50 conversion boxes by next January. Couple
that with the fact that new televisions, even those
cheap $150 models, come with digital converters, and perhaps the 13% of
over-the-air-only households (many of which are public television supporters)
won’t be as left out as some have feared.

From
ClickZNews: "In what it claims is the largest such survey ever conducted,
the Web Analytics Association (WAA) has released a report finding most
analytics professionals feel they and their companies struggle to grasp Web
analytics."

From
ArsTechnica: "A lawsuit filed in May of 2006 by Pennsylvania attorney Marc
Bragg accused Linden Lab of wrongfully seizing his virtual land —intellectual
property that Bragg says is worth thousands of (real-life) dollars."

Warner
Group in Deal to Offer Free Music via Internet Site
From the NYT: "Major labels have fought to try to keep fans from listening
to music without paying for it. Now the Warner Music Group, has made a deal
with Lala.com to allow anyone to listen to its music free hoping that doing so
will drive music sales."

From
Broadcast Enginnering: "[According to Harris Interactive] online news and
information sources will overtake TV newscasts within five years. Even today,
many people believe it’s already easier to get news online than to read a
newspaper."

YouTube
Goes Local in Hearst-Argyle Deal
From AdWeek: "In its latest move, YouTube has struck a deal to create
channels for five local broadcast stations owned by Hearst-Argyle. The
companies will share ad revenue generated by news and other content."

Apple
Close to a Deal with Hollywood for Movie RentalsFrom Business 2.0: "Apple's service would compete, however, with
the VOD offerings now provided by cable and satellite TV companies, as well as
startups like Microsoft’s Xbox Live, Movie­link
and Unbox, a joint venture between Amazon and TiVo."

NBC
to Let Other Web Sites Post NBC Video
From Reuters: "Independent Web Site and blog owners can add short NBC
video using software widgets -- small bits of
code that function as dynamic applications when installed on a Web page."

Converters
Signal a New Era for TVs
From the NYT: "Yesterday, the National Association of Broadcasters lifted
the curtain on two prototypes for those basic digital converters that will
start appearing in electronic and department stores in January, at an expected
cost of about $50 to $70."

Sondra Russell works for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and writes the following News Digest on a weekly basis. I think it's a very nice piece of work, but it's distributed by email only. So she's given me permission to quote it here so it can get RSS distribution and also be seen by people outside of public broadcasting. Her email address is srussell [at] cpb [dot] org. --Dennis

___________________________________________

Welcome to the New Media News Digest for the week of June
4th. For those of you who are new, I comb and curate various new media
sources on a weekly basis with an eye towards issues specifically related to
new media activities within public broadcasting. I welcome comments and
feedback. If you have received this from a friend or colleague, please
email me to be added to the list of upcoming mailers. If you would like
to unsubscribe, please do the same.

Thanks,

Sondra Russell

SONDRA’S
SUMMARY

>
The big story this week is that Radiosophy
will be offering a $60 HD Radio. Why is this, in light of everything
else going on this week, the top story? Because commercial and public
broadcasters have collectively invested hundreds of millions in HD Radio
conversion, while audiences have stayed away in droves. Surveys indicate
that consumers don’t see spending $150-$200 on a special radio just to get a
couple extra channels of CD quality programming, especially in light of
cheaper, better alternatives such as online streaming audio and satellite
radio. However, consumers might be willing to spend $60 or, if the
Radiosophy announcement is just the beginning of an industry-wide price drop,
$30 or $40.

>
The think piece this week is another Apple announcement – as part of a
re-launched Apple Music Store, Apple has added iTunes U, a
portal for universities to offer filmed lectures free online.
Many public television and radio stations already offer public
service content online, such as university lectures and interviews with local
political figures. Public broadcasters’ podcasts have benefited greatly
from the increased visibility and easy user interface offered by the Apple
Music Store. Could pubcasters find a way to partner with Apple to
distribute these other types of public service content?

Apple
Launches DRM Free Music
From Apple: "Apple today launched iTunes Plus DRM-free music tracks
featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually
indistinguishable from the original recordings for just $1.29 per song."

EMI
Signs Deal with YouTube
From the WSJ: "EMI Music, the music division of EMI Group, will make music
videos and recordings available on Google's popular online-video Web site. YouTube
visitors will also be able to include EMI content in their own video postings
on the site."

TELEVISION

YouTube Coming to
Apple TV
From Apple: "Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will wirelessly stream videos
directly from YouTube and play them on a user’s widescreen TV."

Silenced
Venezuelan TV station moves to YouTube
From CNN: "Radio Caracas Television, the station silenced by Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, has found a way to continue its daily broadcasts -- on
YouTube, the popular video Web site."

From ComScore: "An analysis of the iTunes podcasting audience revealed
that males represented a significantly larger share of the audience than did
females.Â In addition, 18-24 year olds represented a substantial share of
the audience." (Thanks to Dennis Haarsager)

CBS
Buys Last.FM, an Online Radio Site
From the NYT: "CBS said yesterday that it had acquired Last.FM, an online
radio and social-networking site, for $280 million to expand its digital
offerings. The purchase is regarded as a way for CBS to grab an audience
online."

... Last year, M+R Strategic Services conducted
the very useful eNonprofit Benchmark
Study, which found that organizations with online advocacy programs had
annual averages for online giving that were three times higher than
organizations without such programs. When you combine this finding, however,
with the fact that two thirds of the members of the e-mail lists of nonprofits
who use online advocacy are classified as activists -- not donors -- it becomes
unclear whether the success they have with online fundraising is because people
who take online action are really more likely to give, or because those
organizations simply have larger email lists. ...